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Home , Antoine Bibesco, Lillian Hellman, Muriel Gardiner, Otto Katz, Watch on the Rhine, Wehrmachtbericht

McGuire Proscenium Stage / Sept 30 – Nov 5, 2017

Watch on the Rhine by directed by LISA PETERSON

PLAY GUIDE Inside

THE PLAY The Title • 3 Plot Synopsis • 4 Characters • 5 - 8

THE PLAYWRIGHT Lillian Hellman: Witness, Activist, Artist • 9, 10 What was said about the play? • 11

CULTURAL CONTEXT A Brief History of • 12 A Problematic Journalism • 13

BUILDING THE PRODUCTION From the Director: Lisa Peterson • 14

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION For Further Reading and Understanding • 15

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Guthrie Theater Play Guide Copyright 2017

DRAMATURG Jo Holcomb GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Graves CONTRIBUTORS Jo Holcomb and Gina Musto

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2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY

Lillian Hellman wrote the first draft of in August of 1939, before Britain and had entered the war with Germany and long before the would. The play premiered in April 1941, still before the U.S. was directly involved. By the time of its premiere, a great deal more was known about the move of Hitler’s Germany toward global domination as well as the atrocities, committed by the Nazis. The Title

The play’s title comes from a was set to music by Karl Wilhelm one of the most popular songs German patriotic poem and anthem (1815-1873). “The Watch on the in Germany, again rivaling the written in the mid-19th century: Rhine” was the rousing tune sung “Deutschlandlied” as the de facto Max Schneckenburger (1819-1849) by German soldiers as they headed national anthem. In World War II, wrote the poem Die Wacht am into battle during the Franco- the daily Wehrmachtbericht radio Rhein [The Watch on the Rhine] Prussian War of 1870. It was also report began with the tune, until during the Rhine crisis of 1840, particularly popular in Germany it was replaced by the fanfare when France renewed its claim to during the First World War. from Liszt’s “Les preludes” in 1941. the Rhine River as France’s natural The song’s title was also used as border. Germany feared that France The anthem may be most familiar the codename for the German was planning to annex the left bank to American audiences who offensive in 1944 known today as of the Rhine. Thus, we read: “The have seen the film Casablanca, in the Battle of the Bulge. Rhine, the Rhine, go to our Rhine, which “Die Wacht am Rhein” is / Who’ll guard our River, hold juxtaposed against the singing of (source: germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc. the line?” Like many other songs “La Marseillaise” in Rick’s café. org) and poems, “The Watch on the Rhine” called for rivalries between Audio of the anthem courtesy of various German kingdoms and the Library of Congress: https:// principalities to be set aside and www.loc.gov/item/jukebox.157/ Elijah Alexander (Kurt Muller) and Sarah for to establish a unified Agnew (Sara Muller). Photo by Dan Norman. state. In 1854, five years after From World War I through 1945, Schneckenburger’s death, his poem the “Watch on the Rhine” was

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 3 THE PLAY

Plot Synopsis

The play begins in spring of 1940 Bodo. The children are wiser than Mullers will be as well. Fanny says at the Farrelly home outside of their years, eccentric and multi- that isn’t the case and plans a Washington, D.C. Fanny Farrelly lingual. Kurt tells the Farrellys that celebration for Babette’s birthday. is anxiously awaiting the return of he is an ant-fascist and that they her daughter, Sara, from Europe, have been moving a great deal for While gossiping, Fanny reveals along with her husband and three his work and have come now to the that Teck has been playing poker children whom Fanny has never U.S. for a holiday. After living simply at the German Embassy with an met. Her son, David, who lives and jumping from place to place, arms dealer and German Nazis. The with her in the house, is having Sara is overwhelmed at being back discussion turns to politics, and flirtations with the married Marthe. in her childhood home surrounded Kurt plays a song on the piano that Marthe and her husband, Teck De by wealth. Teck is suspicious of was sung during the Spanish Civil Brancovis, are staying with the the Mullers and snoops through War when the anti-fascists resisted Farrellys having fled Europe as their luggage, much to the shock Franco. Teck begins to pry at the well. Their marriage is on the rocks, of Marthe. Suspecting that Marthe Muller children, trying to find out their unpaid bills are piling up, and is having an affair with David, Teck more information about their lives Fanny feels they have stayed far threatens Marthe to not interfere or and about their father. Meanwhile, past their welcome. try and stop him. Marthe returns from a trip to town to pick up dresses Fanny Sara and her husband, Kurt Muller, Eight days later, the extended has ordered for Babette, Sara and arrive unexpectedly early to the family is gathered together Marthe. A long distance call comes house along with their three relaxing. Teck announces he will for Kurt and he leaves to take it. children: Joshua, Babette and be leaving soon and suspects the Teck gets David to admit he bought a sapphire bracelet for Marthe and Marthe confesses she loves David. Marthe officially separates from Teck, saying she won’t leave with him and plans to move to Washington, D.C.

Kurt returns and tells the family that he must go away. Teck then reveals he has read a news story in the paper about a man named Max Friedank who has been captured in Europe. He is part of an anti- fascist resistance group, and Teck believes that Kurt has been working with him. Teck blackmails Kurt to keep his identity secret. Kurt tells the Farrellys that he is a part of this resistance and that he is on a wanted list. As the play drives towards a suspenseful end, Kurt must choose whether to make a great sacrifice or lose all he has fought for.

Jonathan Walker (Teck de Brancovis) and Kate Guentzel (Marte). Photo by Dan Norman. 4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY

Characters

Two of the characters in Watch on the Rhine and the film Watch on the Rhine are Casablanca that stems not only from their addressing the same based on public figures question of American involvement whom Lillian Hellman knew: in the war, but also because the Teck de Brancovis (and by characters of Kurt Muller and Victor Laszlo were most likely association Marthe) and based on the same person — a Kurt Muller. The character Moscow trained agent named Otto Sara Muller was based on Katz. Katz operated out of pre- Hitler Germany and then France. Hellman’s acquaintance He had at least 21 aliases. He also Buttinger. insisted that he was briefly Marlene Dietrich’s husband in 1920s , TECK DE BRANCOVIS: which was probably not so, though THE HISTORICAL LINK he was possibly her lover. He was Prince Antoine Bibesco (1878 – 1951) undeniably the model for the lead Lillian Hellman based the character PHOTO: GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN COLLECTION (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS) character in Watch on the Rhine. of Teck de Brancovis on Prince Antoine Bibesco, a Romanian Katz was a charming, handsome, aristocrat, diplomat and lawyer, as high-rolling man, and it is possible well as a notorious cardshark who to identify him as an exemplary fleeced her of some six hundred figure of 20th century life — an dollars at the home of Lady individual more or less self-cast in in 1936. Bibesco a role that did not exist until the served in the Romanian legations vast tragedies of that era began to in and Petrograd, and play themselves out after the rise later married Elizabeth Asquith, of Hitler and Stalin. Katz was not a a woman 20 years his junior. “spy” in the usual meaning of the Asquith’s mother thought Bibesco word. Very occasionally, he carried would be a steadying influence on some purloined documents from her daughter. “What a gentleman this place to that place, but that he is. None of my family are was not his primary duty. He was, gentlemen like that; no breeding rather, a sort of cultural courier — you know,” she wrote. founding and editing more political Jonathan Walker (Teck de Brancovis) (PHOTO: DAN NORMAN) magazines, in more places, than Bibesco, like Teck, was an one can conveniently count; writing opportunist, but not a Nazi. In KURT MULLER: and editing passionate books; 1936, the Romanian Prime Minister THE HISTORICAL LINK organizing conferences and mass recalled nearly all of Romania’s meetings on major topics like the diplomats, and Prince Bibesco had In the play, Kurt Muller is Sara’s Reichstag Fire and long-forgotten the unenviable responsibility of husband and a former engineer ones like a plebiscite in the Saar. reassuring England that Romania who worked for Dornier Air Craft. The screenwriter-playwright- was not slipping into the grip of Leaving his work behind, he communist Hy Kraft once called fascism. In reality, Romania was joined an anti-fascist resistance him “the Scarlet Pimpernel of the losing its grip on neutrality and group, first fighting in Spain, then anti-Nazi underground,” and that’s independence. resisting Nazis in his own country about as good a summary of his life of Germany. There is a complex as you can make in a half-sentence. relationship between the play

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 5 where he was schooled in spy craft (and ), sealed his fate. Indeed, he would later say that what happiness he had achieved was the result of his services to international .

It’s possible that Katz achieved his apotheosis in prewar Hollywood. He loved life in the celebrity fast lane, and the rich and guilty stars, in turn, loved his somewhat exaggerated tales of derring-do in shadowy Europe. Who can say how many ambulances (at $1,000 a pop) made their way to Otto Katz in 1946, age 51. Katz was born in 1895 and was executed by the Soviets in 1951. Spain as a result of the celebrity (PHOTO: HTTP://WWW.USTRCR.CZ/CS/ANDRE-SIMONE-OTTO-KATZ ) Muriel Gardiner Buttinger (1901-1985) fundraisers he staged — even as PHOTOGRAPH BY TRUDE FLEISCHMANN, 1934 Stalin murderously sold out the Republican cause in Iberia and, incidentally, stole its wealth? What we can say is that Katz was instrumental in setting up the precursor organization to the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, membership in which would so greatly inconvenience Hollywood’s liberal community when the investigators came calling a decade later.

Lillian Hellman was friendly with him when he produced in support of the Republicans Elijah Alexander (Kurt Muller) during the and (PHOTO: DAN NORMAN) when he raised money for the Sarah Agnew (Sara Muller) How Katz came to be a far-darting anti-fascist cause in Hollywood (PHOTO: DAN NORMAN) provocateur is fairly easy to in the late 1930s. Hellman’s play explain. The son of a prosperous preceded the screen adaptation Czechoslovakian manufacturer, of Casablanca (written by Dashiell SARA MULLER: Katz, who was Jewish, was drawn Hammett, Hellman’s partner), while THE HISTORICAL LINK to the theatrical (and cabaret) the release of Casablanca preceded life of Berlin, where he aspired the film adaption of Watch on the In addition to being the “real” to playwriting. What politicized Rhine, also written by Hammett Julia of the later controversy over him was the rise of Nazism in the with some additional material veracity that Lillian Hellman would 1920s, in particular its vicious anti- by Hellman. Without overstating face (as well as “Alice” in Hellman’s Semitism. He gravitated toward the similarities, it is interesting to memoir An Unfinished Woman), the Soviet Union, which seemed consider Watch on the Rhine as Muriel Gardiner Buttinger also to him — not incorrectly at the the story of Victor Laszlo after he served as the model for Sara Muller time — the only nation mounting leaves Casablanca for the United in Watch on the Rhine: any sort of effective opposition to States. Hitler. In his accurate view, all the “In the middle of November, 1939 other major European states were, (biographical material on Otto Katz from: … an American woman … boarded albeit somewhat more politely, anti- The Dangerous Otto Katz: the many lives of the ‘Manhattan’ in Bordeaux to Semitic as well. A spell in Moscow, a Soviet Spy, Jonathan Miles, 2010) bring her husband, a leader of the

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Austrian resistance to the Nazis, of Poland, they managed to obtain and her eight-year-old daughter passage on the ‘Manhattan,’ out of Europe to the safety of which was the last American ship America. Although she didn’t know to leave France. Once safely in it for forty-three years, her life America, Muriel needed a home for would make a deep and lasting herself and her family. Her lawyer impression on Lillian Hellman. The in New York, a man named Wolf woman, who celebrated her thirty- Schwabacher, was at the time eighth birthday on the voyage, had trying to find someone to buy his been born in Chicago as Muriel brother’s half of a double house the Morris. … She got her B.A. from two men shared on a large farm in Wellesley in 1922, then spent the Pennington, New Jersey. … Muriel following two years at Oxford offered to buy the brother’s half, doing graduate work in English and was quickly settled into her literature. lawyer’s house. Schwabacher had many friends in the theater, among In 1926, Muriel went to in them Lillian Hellman. … Years later the hope of studying psychiatry Muriel Gardiner Buttinger said that with . When she those first days back in America, learned Freud was not accepting still numb from the grimness of additional students, she enrolled Europe on the brink of war, she was in the University of Vienna to cheered by the stories her friend become a psychiatrist. She was Wolf told about his glamourous married briefly to an Englishman, friends in the New York theater. Julian Gardiner, by whom she had Since Muriel was now herself a a daughter. … and she became figure of considerable glamour, an involved with the antifascist American heiress who had risked movement; as the Nazis spread her life defying the Nazis, her story their power in Austria, her would surely been of interest to involvement increased and her some of Schwabacher’s American group went underground. Using friends, especially those most the operational cover name “Mary,” concerned about Nazism.” Muriel Gardiner ran dangerous errands for the underground, (from Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman, permitted the use of her two William Wright, 1986) Vienna apartments for meetings, and put her considerable wealth at the service of the underground efforts.

In the course of her work with the underground, she met and fell in love with Joe Buttinger, a fellow socialist who was in effect the leader of the Austrian resistance. They eventually married. As the political situation worsened, the Buttingers’ efforts increasingly involved helping and others to leave Austria. Both Joe and Muriel stayed in Europe until the last possible minute; then, when war broke out with Hitler’s invasion

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 7 Character Chronology

1877 1925 Fanny is born Marthe Randolph marries Teck de Brancovis 1895 (approx.) Kurt Muller is born in the 1926 German town of Fuerth Joshua Muller is born (Fürth) — a city located in northern Bavaria. It is now 1928 contiguous with the larger city Babette Muller is born of Nuremberg, the centers of the two cities being only a little 1931 over four miles apart. Bodo Muller is born Count Teck de Brancovis is born (August). Kurt sees 27 men in Romania murdered in a Nazi street fight in his hometown 1898 (approx.) Fanny marries Joshua Farrelly 1932 Kurt begins his work with the 1899 anti-fascist resistance Sara Farrelly is born in the family home outside of 1933 Washington, D.C. January 30 – Adolph Hitler is appointed Chancellor 1901 of Germany by President David Farrelly is born Hindenburg; the Nazi Party gains control. 1908 Kurt and his family leave Marthe Randolph de Brancovis Germany; Kurt continues his is born anti-fascist work in surrounding European countries 1914 – 1918 At some point in this period 1936 – 1939 Kurt serves in the German army 1936, Kurt travels to Spain as in World War I part of the anti-fascist German battalion — The Thälmann 1920 Battalion of the International Sara Farrelly marries Brigades – named after Ernst Kurt Muller in Germany. Thälmann, the imprisoned Kurt goes to work as an former leader of the German engineer for Dornier Communist Party Flugzeugwerke, a German aircraft manufacturer founded 1940 in Friedrichshafen, Germany in (May 10) Germany begins 1914 by Claude Dornier invasion of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France (later in the month). The Muller family arrives in the United States and then at Sara’s family home.

8 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAYWRIGHT

Lillian Hellman: Witness, Activist, Artist by Jo Holcomb Production Dramaturg

Lillian Hellman was born in 1905 in , La., to Max Hellman and Julia Newhouse Hellman, who were both descendants of German Jews. When Hellman was 6 years old, the family relocated to New York City, and throughout her childhood she traveled between New Orleans and New York.

It was a chaotic upbringing, visiting from Kober, Hellman met detective built and were receiving prisoners her father’s poorer boardinghouse fiction writer , who were Jewish, Roma (gypsy), relatives in the South and then with whom she began a sometimes homosexual and Communist. having to adapt to the refined loving, but more often than During her travels throughout the circumstances of her mother’s not tempestuous relationship European continent, Lillian Hellman family in New York. Hellman later that would last for 30 years. often found herself face-to-face spent time at both New York Encouraged by Hammett, Hellman with Hitler’s regime. In 1938, while University and , continued her global travels. in Spain, she also bore witness to but her college career ended when Hammett, in turn, took a deep the ongoing fight between the she went to work in a publishing interest in Hellman’s writing career, Republicans (anti-fascists) and house at the age of 19. which he fully supported. In fact, it the Nationalists led by Francisco was Hammett who came across the Franco (the Fascists). She traveled widely at this time with real life boarding school scandal her then-husband , that would inspire Hellman’s first Hellman was captured by the idea and decided in 1929 to study at the play, The Children’s Hour, which of a play that incorporated her university in Bonn, Germany. At her premiered in November 1934, and experiences in Europe and set out boardinghouse in Bonn, Hellman would become Hellman’s longest- to write a script that would reflect was recruited by a Nazi student running production. the political climate of the day. By group and briefly considered this time she had also joined the joining, mistakenly thinking it was Her second play (Days to Come), Communist Party, and her strident a socialist organization. When she however, was a commercial failure anti-fascist sentiments were a discovered the true nature of the and motivated Hellman to take a major influence on her creative group, she promptly left Germany, hiatus from playwriting. During her process. By the summer of 1939, recalling in her memoirs that “for self-imposed sabbatical, the threat Hitler had annexed Austria and the first time in my life I thought of fascism had a stranglehold on the Sudetenland and was moving about being a Jew.” This experience Europe. The civil war had begun toward Poland. Hellman was ready later influenced the writing of two of in Spain (1936–1939); Hitler had to take a stand. In her memoir her plays, Watch on the Rhine (1941) been chancellor in Germany Pentimento, she writes: and The Searching Wind (1944). since 1933; racial purity laws had been established; and the first Watch on the Rhine is the only In 1930, not long after her divorce concentration camps had been play I have ever written that

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 9 came out in one piece, as if I her experience as an unwilling had seen a landscape and never Watch on the Rhine opened in witness before the House altered the trees or the seasons April 1941, eight months before Committee on Un-American of their colors … here, for the the United States would enter Activities, to whom she uttered first and last time, the work I World War II. her now famous quote: “I cannot did, the actors, the rehearsals, and will not cut my conscience to the success of the play, even the fit this year’s fashions.” troubles that I have forgotten, a New York Drama Critics’ Circle make a pleasant oneness and Award for Hellman and propel her Lillian Hellman died on Martha’s have been lost to the past. It successful playwriting career for Vineyard on June 30, 1984. Her is possible that because the another two decades. plays, screenplays and memoirs war so drastically changed the place her at the pinnacle of the world, the small, less observed Toward the latter part of her canon of American writers of the things changed without being life, Hellman also penned three 20th century. recognized. (Pentimento, 1973.) memoirs: An Unfinished Woman (1969, winner of the National Book Watch on the Rhine opened in Award), Pentimento: A Book of April 1941, eight months before the Portraits (1973) and Scoundrel United States would enter World Time (1976). It is in Scoundrel Time

PHOTO: IRVING PENN IRVING PHOTO: War II. The play would go on to win that Hellman relates the story of

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What was said about the play?

In Watch on the Rhine, which was put on at the Martin walks in in the form of a titled couple — a pair of titled Beck Theatre last night, Lillian Hellman has brought Europeans — pausing on the way to the West Coast. the awful truth close to home. She has translated the I was quite excited, thought of shelving the foxes to death struggle between ideas in familiar terms we are work on it. But when I did get to it I couldn’t get it bound to respect and understand. Curious how much moving. It started all right — and then stuck. better she has done it than anybody else by forgetting the headlines and by avoiding the obvious approaches Later I had another idea. What would be the reactions to the great news subject of today. … What it says is of some sensitive people who had spent much of their that the death of fascism is more desirable than the lives starving in Europe and then found themselves lives and well-being of the people who hate it. Miss as house guests in the home of some very wealthy Hellman makes that familiar point without political Americans? What would they make out of all the argument and without producing in miniature form the furious rushing around, the sleeping tablets taken struggle between fascism and democracy. when there is no time to sleep them off, the wonderful dinners ordered and then never eaten, and so on and . “The Play”, , Apr 2, 1941, pg. 26 so on? The contrasts of the two worlds, the ways of life. That play didn’t work either. I kept worrying at During the last seven years Lillian Hellman has been it, and the earlier people, the titled couple, returned using her head to good advantage. It is an excellent continually. It would take a lot of afternoons and head, equipped with eyes that see clearly and a cold probably a lot of tomorrows to trail all the steps that mind that works with precision and logic. … … Watch made those two plays into Watch on the Rhine. The on the Rhine shows that Miss Hellman cannot fairly titled couple are still in, but as minor characters. The be typed on the basis of two plays of calculated Americans are nice people, and so on. It all is changed, workmanship. For her drama about a German who but the new play grew out of the other two.” has dedicated his life to overthrowing fascism is quite “Of Lillian Hellman: being a conversation with the unlike her previous work. It includes a great variety of author of “Watch on the Rhine,” Robert van Gelder. characters, most of whom are immediately likeable. It is humorous, witty and affectionate in many scenes. The New York Times, Apr 20, 1941, pg. X1 It is pleasantly discursive; … it is creative, which is the only thing that matters, and it is moving in its attitude Watch on the Rhine is the only play I have ever written toward human beings. For Miss Hellman is writing with that came out in one piece, as if I had seen a landscape the fullness, spontaneity and enjoyment of a person and never altered the trees or the seasons of their who has mastered the craft and is now released, colors. All other work for me had been fragmented, perhaps by the nobility of the subject, from the hunting in an open field with shot from several bondage of making things fit and working according guns, following the course but unable to see clearly, to pattern. … Watch on the Rhine is incomparably her recovering the shot hands full, then hands empty best work. … from stumbling and spilling. But here, for the first and last time, the work I did, the actors, the rehearsals, Brooks Atkinson. “Hellman’s ‘Watch on the Rhine,’ the success of the play, even the troubles that I have The New York Times, Apr 13, 1941, pg. X1 forgotten, make a pleasant one-ness and have been lost to the past. It is possible that because the war so drastically changed the world, the small, less observed LILLIAN HELLMAN ON WATCH ON THE RHINE things changed without being recognized.

… “The evolution of Watch on the Rhine,” said Miss Lillian Hellman, Pentimento, 1973. Hellman, “is quite involved and, I’m afraid, not very interesting. When I was working on “,” I hit on the idea — well, there’s a small, Midwestern American town, average or perhaps a little more isolated than average, and into that town Europe

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 11 CULTURAL CONTEXT

A Brief History of Fascism

Even scholars of fascism do not Perhaps the best definition hostility toward Muslim immigrants agree on what fascism means; nor, comes from Robert Paxton, and the austerity measures of for that matter, do fascist scholars. professor emeritus at Columbia the post-2008 eurozone. There The difficulty is twofold, and University and holder of the Legion are politicians whose parties concerns both origins and actions. d’Honneur. Paxton’s The Anatomy are of fascist extraction, like the of Fascism analyzes the stages by National Front in France, whose Fascism originated in 1920s which 20th century rose Catholic-tinged identity politics Europe, mostly among the and fell. can be traced back to proto- radical collectivists of the left. fascists like the early 20th century But it developed by synthesizing Fascism, Paxton says, is a Action Française. Some of these command economics with the dynamic process, rather than a politicians and parties, like Norbert racism and nationalism of the fixed ideology like or Hofer’s Freedom Party in Austria, radical collectivists of the right. communism. There are five steps remain closer to their roots than Historians now discount the once- on Paxton’s road to hell, and not others, and might merit the name popular Marxist interpretation that all fascist parties made it past the neofascist. Others are doing fascism was the child of capitalism second step: their best to shed the worst of and imperialism. But they are not these associations as they enter unanimous about whether the 1. Ideological formation and the mainstream politics; the National rivalry of fascism and communism creation of a party with quasi- Front’s Marine Le Pen did, no was a sibling rivalry. Like the military cadres. Talk of national longer on speaking terms with her communists, the fascists were humiliation, lost vigor, and father Jean-Marie, the National radically unprincipled opportunists, the failures of liberalism and Front’s founding ideologue. But contemptuous of democratic democracy. only one Western democracy, norms. They sought to overthrow 2. Entry of the party into Greece, has a fascist party like the right-left format of democratic national politics. Intimidation Golden Dawn, which possesses politics, and their ideology of rivals, and planned acts of both uniformed street fighters combined elements of both. “redemptive violence” against and members of the national suspect minorities and radical parliament. The second problem, also related rivals. to fascism’s deliberate immoralism, 3. Arrival in government, often in Adapted from “The Elusive Definition of lies in identifying the nature of alliance with conservatives. ‘Fascist’”, Dominic Green The Atlantic, fascist rule. Was 4. Exercise of power, in concert Dec. 18, 2016 the quintessential fascist state, with institutions and business. or a unique exception to the The regime expands its control rule? The numerous fascist states at home: restricting the press of southern Europe and South and democratic processes, America ended not in apocalypse, corporatizing business, and but repressive tedium. Most collectivizing the people. fascist economies followed Benito Abroad, it asserts itself Mussolini’s definition of fascism as militarily. the corporatist control of private 5. Radicalization or entropy: industry by government, but Some fascists go down in a most fascist states also tended to Götterdämmerung, but most annex areas of the economy to die of boredom. government control. And how much did fascist governments deliver on Elements of Paxton’s early stages their promise to create autarkic, appear in the angry populism self-sufficient economies? Again, that is gaining ground in modern the historians are not in agreement. Western democracies, especially in

12 \ GUTHRIE THEATER CULTURAL CONTEXT

A Problematic Journalism

Lillian Hellman originally planned This tendency to bury the lede mixed, with several publications to set Watch on the Rhine in a developed in part from a sense – including The New York Times small Ohio town, but decided of general disbelief in the U.S. - praising the work, while others to move the location to outside concerning the horrific news felt it did not go far enough to of Washington, D.C., so that her trickling over the Atlantic. condemn fascism. Nevertheless, by protagonists, the Farrellys, would Moreover, false atrocity stories having characters Sarah and Kurt be situated closer to a center that had come out of World War Muller walk into the Farrellys living of government. That creative I caused newspaper editors in the room with first-person accounts, choice meant the fictional family 1940s to doubt these new accounts Hellman was able to bring the war would have access to firsthand of mass murder. Though reliable to the doorstep of many other news about world events. In a sources in Europe were sending American homes. time before social media, when news of concentration camps, news traveled slower and had American journalists feared that the Gina Musto, Literary Intern fewer outlets of expression, news was . American newspapers were the main source publications were particularly of information. Had Hellman set distrustful of British news sources, the play in Ohio, chances are the as England was already involved in Farrellys, like much of the rest the war and may have been trying of the country, would have been to jolt the U.S. out of its neutrality. kept in the dark as newspapers weren’t regularly producing stories This problematic coverage that focused on persecution of directly influenced how the U.S. European Jews. government was responding to the war and left most Americans During World War II, major unaware of the genocide being newspapers like The New York perpetrated in Nazi-occupied areas Times were slow to carry stories of Europe. But it inspired voices about Holocaust atrocities. When like Lillian Hellman’s to rise up American journalists finally began and make sure that action would Carley Clover (Babette Muller), Hal Weilandgruber (Bodo Muller), Elijah Alexander (Kurt Muller), to give credence and coverage to be taken. Interestingly, reviews Silas Sellnow (Joshua Muller) and Sarah Agnew the events in Europe, those articles of Watch on the Rhine were (Sara Muller). Photo by Dan Norman. were placed deep on inside pages. The Times, which was regarded as “the gatekeeper of the American press,” published 1,186 stories about what was happening to the Jews in Europe from September 1939 - May 1945 (an average of about 17 stories a month), which may sound like a lot. However, in that same timeframe, Holocaust reporting made the front page only 26 times. A mere six of those articles identified Jews as the primary victims, the rest rather vaguely describing them as refugees or immigrants instead. BUILDING THE PRODUCTION

FROM THE DIRECTOR Lisa Peterson

I knew of Lillian Hellman through her play Little Foxes and from reading Pentimento, one of her three memoirs. But I didn’t know Watch on the Rhine.

So when Joe Haj mentioned it to me, and I finally read it, I was more than pleasantly surprised; I was really taken with it.

Obviously, this is an incredibly timely play. At this moment in our history, I think people are looking to the past to figure out what artists were thinking and talking When I describe the play, I describe Lillian Hellman’s first memoir, An about before it was really clear Eastern European politics that are Unfinished Woman, and what what was happening in Germany wafting into an American house. shocked me was that Hellman’s and in Eastern Europe prior to What you see is a slice of well-off, memoir voice is so frank and really World War II. It was an amorphous progressive America at a moment messy. She just seems unedited time. In retrospect, we of course when a trouble we think is far away to me. The idea of a woman in know that Nazis are bad. We actually comes home to roost. And the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s allowing know in retrospect that something I think that’s a good thing. It means herself to write exactly what she unwatched can result in the loss of we can’t pretend that we don’t know thinks and feels, and not couching tens of millions of people. And so, I what’s going on. And I get excited it … I love that about Hellman, and think part of our job as we work on about doing a play that’s about I had a really great time getting to this play is to put our minds back paying attention and getting active. know her voice. before we knew, because Watch on the Rhine is really a play about The other thing I want to share Edited from comments made to the cast and engagement and waking up. is that I’ve been lately reading staff on the first day of rehearsal.

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For Further Reading and Understanding

BOOKS Mellen, Joan, Hellman and Adler, Jacob H., Lillian Hellman, Hammett: The Legendary Passion Vaughn, 1969. of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, HarperCollins (New York Brooks Atkinson and Albert City), 1996. Hirschfeld, “Watch on the Rhine,” in their The Lively Years (New York: Melnick, Ralph, The Stolen Legacy Association Press, 1973), pp. 163- of : Meyer Levin, Lillian 166. Hellman, and the Staging of the Diary, Press, 1997. Authors in the News, Gale, Volume 1, 1976, Volume 2, 1976. Moody, Richard, Lillian Hellman: Playwright, Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, Volume 2, 1974, Volume 4, Turk, Ruth, Lillian Hellman, Rebel 1975, Volume 8, 1978, Volume 14, Playwright, Lerner (Minneapolis), 1980, Volume 18, 1981, Volume 33, 1995. 1985, Volume 44, 1987, Volume 52, 1989. Wright, William, Lillian Hellman: The Image, the Woman, Simon & Dictionary of Literary Biography, Schuster, 1986. Gale, Volume 7:Twentieth-Century American Dramatists, 1981.

Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1984, Gale, 1985.

Falk, Doris V., Lillian Hellman, Ungar, 1978.

Gassner, John, Dramatic Soundings: Evaluations and Retractions Culled from 30 Years of Dramatic Criticism, Crown, 1968.

Griffin, Alice, and Geraldine Thorsten, Understanding Lillian Hellman, University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

Horn, Barbara Lee, Lillian Hellman: A Research and Production Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, 1998.

Lederer, Katherine, Lillian Hellman, Twayne, 1979.

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